Childbirth Class

This is something I wrote in November to describe my experience at the "free" childbirth class...

Why I Can’t Go Back to Childbirth Class

We just left our free childbirth class tonight vowing never to return. It’s not because the class is bad, no, it’s because I am completely incapable of holding my shit together when people are talking about vaginal discharge.

Our first experience with the class came last week. We signed up for the “free” class because, well, we’re cheap. We enter a large medical library adjacent to the Winter Park Memorial Hospital, which, incidentally, is clearly the stage for a new David Lynch movie. Our facilitator is an RN from an unidentified Caribbean island. Normally her nation of birth wouldn’t matter but, well, the accent figured prominently in several of our outbursts. We are surrounded by a broad spectrum of people. There are young couples like us, there are teenagers with their mothers, and there are promiscuously dressed whores who can barely stop smoking long enough to pay attention. You know, the usual. Our teacher has a table filled with plastic food and plastic breasts. I start to worry.

The first class begins with an introduction to pregnancy, raisins and cheese sandwiches. The teacher has a penchant for stating the obvious as if it were not so. She advises us that cheese sandwiches are a good source of follate. Then she holds up the fake cheese sandwich and shakes it at us exclaiming, “This is not a real cheese sandwich!” Subsequently she held up a package of raisins, informing us that they too are an excellent follate source and, “Raisins are basically dried grapes!!!” as if at any moment we might challenge her. It was all I could do not to stand up and exclaim, “Surely not!!!”

So this set the stage for my mood. I am prone to hysterical inappropriate laughter. Mostly it has been confined to public restrooms but I could feel that I may be about to branch out. We were compelled to watch a bizarre movie about SIDS where there was a scary stuffed lamb that came to life and talked to the mother of the “at-risk” baby. If I were the mother it wouldn’t be SIDS I was worrying about. I would worry about the presence of an evil baby-talking lamb that was showing far too much interest in my baby! I managed not to laugh at infant mortality this time…but the night was still young.

We began to learn that anything…absolutely anything would immediately send you into pre-term labor. She ran through a litany to rival St. Francis of things that would cause it. The only two words she wrote out on the board were SEMEN and CHLAMYDIA. When she wrote chlamydia on the board she then described how many women have chlamydia and don’t realize it. Next…and this almost sent us into spontaneous projectile vomiting…she visually indicated that the “chlamydia” might get shoved up our baby’s nose and mouth as he is born…and then he would have to live in the ICU for a while we worry about his life or death. Um.

Next, I learn that as a liberal and enlightened woman, I am not above laughing at accents. She is discussing how you will know whether your water is broken. She says “Ya may feel a trickle in ya panties…where you’ll want to wear a SANITARY NAPKIN (She waves one at us in a threatening manner) or ya may feel a GOOSH” Now the last word is “gush” but she used the long “o” sound. Then she did it again while making a strange gesture toward her pelvic region. I am trembling with laughter and look over to find Rubin head in hands shaking like a leaf. I fear I will lose it completely so I run out of the room toward the bathroom and compose myself…sure that everyone heard my outburst from the other side of the door.

While I am in the can Rubin tells me later that she started talking about paying attention when you wipe yourself. This is demonstrated by her gesturing with her hand in between her legs in a far to realistic way and then holding up the pretend paper for all of us to behold. Thank God I was in the bathroom.

Now I’m ready to have a fit. Once I get started it is hard for me to stop. This does not deter her from continuing to touch herself inappropriately. She is talking about how “Ya nipples will turn dark” and she starts circling her fingers around her nipples, much to our surprise. Then she continues to discuss how the baby will “latch on”. She picks up both of the plastic breast molds on the table…I knew this would be bad…and she puts them over her own breasts and starts pinching the nipples violently explaining something that I forgot to pay attention to…I was staring so hard at the ground trying to think of dead puppies.

The rest of the class was punctuated by her occasionally rubbing both sides of her crotch and thrusting as she said “pelvic area” and we have to leave a little early anyway because we have a presidential debate to mock.

We chalked up our immaturity to circumstance and convinced ourselves that it wouldn’t happen again. So we went back tonight with high hopes. We were doing ok…really. There was no plastic food or anything. We held it together when our teacher inexplicably went on about the benefits of Publix over Winn-Dixie because of some “commitment” that she felt Winn-Dixie expected of her. We even held it together as she describes in detail the procedure for an episiotomy…even as she over-enunciated the word “rectum”. She launched into a discussion of perennial massage. This involves putting olive oil on your fingers and inserting them into your vagina. She had a diagram of a woman spread eagled and she was motioning with her hand. I was attempting to ignore the fact she was fingering a diagram when she suddenly looks serious and cautions us….” Ya’ve got to wash ya hands!!” I wanted to ask her if I should wash before or after….but I refrained.

Oh but it was not over. She was discussing how we should move around during labor…even doing a particular exercise called “Rock-and-Move”. Then she proceeded to demonstrate by getting on all fours and “Backing that thang up” as it were. She looked for all the world as if she were simulating sex and at this point I was not the only person in the room losing it.

Were that it was only that. I could have stayed. But no. Now we see the cracks in the façade and my true nature emerges. She began to discuss why it is bad to lay on your back during labor. She whips out a ragged looking doll attached to a mesh bag with a tube. This is presumably a representation of the umbilical cord and the placenta. She then begins to wrap the cord around the baby’s neck several times. Then she starts getting more animated in her discussion, apparently forgets she has a strangled baby-doll in her right hand and starts gesticulating madly with it as she talks. I burst into unmistakable, un-cover-uppable laughter. I then recognize that I need to address the fact that I just laughed at her strangling a child and I squeeze out a small, “that’s terrible!” as I try to screw my face up into some emotion resembling horror. She says, “I know this is upsetting…next week we’ll talk more about pregnancy complications.” I decide then and there that I can not be in class next week.

At the next break I grab my pillows and ask Rubin if we can just rent the video. He is reluctant. We walk outside and as I try to recount the past hour I very nearly pee in my pants…I start to laugh so hard tears are streaming down my face and I am drooling and braying like a donkey. I am certain that it is unwise to go back in. Rubin comforts me and says that we didn’t need that stupid class. We could learn all that material with a third of the time investment. And who the hell asked for cathartic self-realization anyway! We convince each other that if I laugh like this ever again it will surely send me into pre-term labor and decide to call it a night.